If you wander through the hospital-like halls of a 1980s building in the Western Australian town of Bunbury, past offices signposted for dairy and grain research, you will come to a pokey little laboratory.

The racks of jars and beakers lining the walls suggest you’ve entered a university chemistry lab, but the two dozen wine glasses drying neatly near a corner sink is revealing.

This is the Bunbury base for the Department of Agriculture and Food’s wine research, home to Western Australia’s only Brachetto and a number of other alternate varieties of wine.

“Alternative varieties have definitely got a niche in the market and I think that niche is going to grow, particularly with Generation Y wine consumers,” says the department’s research officer, Richard Fennessy.

He is perhaps the most hands-on member involved with the program, and a staunch advocate of alternative varieties and their growing significance within the young wine market.

“They’re looking for something different. They don’t want to drink the same varieties that mum and dad are drinking - they want something a little bit trendy, a little bit hip, and I think a lot of these varieties tick those boxes.”

Producing fine wine is not something many would associate with the Department of Agriculture, whose work often falls into more traditional fields of on-farm extension.

[Generation Y] don’t want to drink the same varieties that mum and dad are drinking - they want something a little bit trendy, a little bit hip.

Department of Agriculture research officer, Richard Fennessy.

The work conducted within the Bunbury laboratory, however, still very much aligns with the conventional approach of undertaking and subsequently handing on research and development information to farmers and producers.

“I think most wine producers are probably watching emerging varieties. What we’re aiming to do is take a little bit of risk out of that decision making for them,” said Mr Fennessy.

The research comes during a difficult time for wine producers, where an oversaturated market has seen less money spent on experimentation.

“The last couple of years, the wine industry has had a few challenges and there hasn’t been a lot of expansion in the industry. We haven’t seen a lot of investment into new varieties.”

Grapes for the project are grown in the South West area of Manjimup, where they were planted 10 years ago. With no mechanised production equipment, Mr Fennessy describes the work in the small laboratory as “very hands-on".

From an individual perspective though, the opportunity to experiment in varieties without any underlying commercial pressure is clearly something he relishes.